Split/Second: Velocity UK Review

Banger racing Hollywood style in Black Rock's explosive racer.

Air Revenge takes the idea of a malevolent machine as the enemy one step further; this time it's an attack chopper that's on the player's tail, swooping close and low as they race through the city. A torrent of missiles rains down – dodge them successfully and it'll fill a meter projected beneath the car that, once topped up, can volley them back at the helicopter. Rinse, repeat and it'll eventually be sent tumbling from the sky.

All this is housed within the reality TV framework, though in truth it only really makes itself known in trailers that bookend the game's 12 'episodes', each housing six events including a showpiece finale. Credits won unlock further events, while wrecking enough opponents earns bonus events. It's simplistic stuff, but the variety in events is just about sufficient to ensure that working through all twelve episodes doesn't descend into a slog.

The projected HUD's a super smart idea - expect to see it in more racers in the future.

With so much focus on the circuits themselves it'd be forgivable to assume that in Split/Second the car most definitely isn't the star, but the game's selection of vehicles certainly has a fair crack at stealing the show. Cars are split into three loose categories – Muscle, Truck or Sports – and though entirely fictional they're all utterly desirable.

They've a chunkiness about their look that translates into how they drive – indeed, Split/Second's cars look and feel like Tonka Toys, with a robustness that invites you to throw them about. Do so and a satisfyingly solid handling model comes to the fore. Drifts are initiated, as arcade racer tradition dictates, with a lift of the gas, and once the back end is out Split/Second asks for more delicacy than most in order to keep the car on the road.

As a racer, then, Split/Second brings more than its fair share of new ideas, but it's still got one eye on the genre's rich past. Multiplayer successfully recaptures the anarchic spirit of racers of old, with Elimination and Survival available alongside the vanilla racing. Eight players are supported online, although unfortunately with the servers under-populated before release we were unable to put it through its paces. Split-screen for two players, however, has proved itself to be a blast (pun intended, thank you very much).

The Verdict

Split/Second is an explosive shot of distilled arcade energy; it&#Array;s action that&#Array;s fuelled by the slick production of the Hollywood a-list, and racing that&#Array;s infused with an infectious amount of fun. Armed with nothing more than a handful of dynamite, developer Black Rock has shook up the racing genre in much the same way that Criterion did nearly nine years ago with the original Burnout.